Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
6. The brute has no general ideas or intuitions, as of space,
time, substance, cause, right. Hence there is no generalizing, and
no proper experience or progress. There is no capacity for
improvement in animals. The brute cannot be trained, except in
certain inferior matters of association, where independent
judgment is not required. No animal makes tools, uses clothes,
cooks food, breeds other animals for food. No hunter’s dog,
however long its observation of its master, ever learned to put
wood on a fire to keep itself from freezing. Even the rudest stone
implements show a break in continuity and mark the introduction of
man; see J. P. Cook, Credentials of Science, 14. “The dog can see
the printed page as well as a man can, but no dog was ever taught
to read a book. The animal cannot create in its own mind the
thoughts of the writer. The physical in man, on the contrary, is
only an aid to the spiritual. Education is a trained capacity to
discern the inner meaning and deeper relations of things. So the
universe is but a symbol and expression of spirit, a garment in
which an invisible Power has robed his majesty and glory”; see S.
S. Times, April 7, 1900. In man, mind first became supreme.
7. The brute has determination, but not self-determination. There
is no freedom of choice, no conscious forming of a purpose, and no
self-movement toward a predetermined end. The donkey is
determined, but not self-determined; he is the victim of heredity
and environment; he acts only as he is acted upon. Harris, Philos.
Basis of Theism, 537-554—“Man, though implicated in nature through
his bodily organization, is in his personality supernatural; the
brute is wholly submerged in nature.... Man is like a ship in the
sea—in it, yet above it—guiding his course, by observing the
heavens, even against wind and current. A brute has no such power;
it is in nature like a balloon, wholly immersed in air, and driven
about by its currents, with no power of steering.” Calderwood,
Philosophy of Evolution, chapter on Right and Wrong: “The grand
distinction of human life is self-control in the field of
action—control over all the animal impulses, so that these do not
spontaneously and of themselves determine activity” [as they do in
the brute]. By what Mivart calls a process of “inverse
anthropomorphism,” we clothe the brute with the attributes of
freedom; but it does not really possess them. Just as we do not
transfer to God all our human imperfections, so we ought not to
transfer all our human perfections to the brute, “reading our full
selves in life of lower forms.” The brute has no power to choose
between motives; it simply obeys motive. The necessitarian
philosophy, therefore, is a correct and excellent philosophy for
the brute. But man’s power of initiative—in short, man’s free
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